Brian – You Don't Want A Boyfriend

As promised the story behind Brian’s ‘You Don’t Want A Boyfriend’ by its creator Ken Sweeney. The song was released as a single in the early 90’s on Detzi Records. You can buy the single for £90 here. Eat your heart out Thurston Revival! Thanks Ken. KD

“”This song, of course, is about the end of a relationship. Listening back to it now, it’s a young person trying to make sense of something that’s happened with a resigned dignity. The lyrics are so painfully honest (“the more you give yourself away to someone, the less they’ll think of you”). Originally I was going to hide it away as a B-side but it just came out so well, it had to be the single. But there were so many 7 inch Irish singles coming out around then, I wanted to put something on our cheap sleeve which might make people buy it or at least give it a listen. That’s were I came up with the story of Alma Reynolds, the sleeve reads

“Alma Reynolds of Des Moines, beat her fiancee to death with an encyclopedia in 1989. She struck him with the 2,000-page volume a total of twelve times while he lay in bed. When she was arrested she asked one of the officers if she could keep the book. She said she wanted it “to remember him by.”

(That’s all that appears on Boyfriends’ sleeve, no band member names, no studios, no credits.) The story of Alma Reynolds worked a dream for an unknown Irish band putting out their own record. One TV presenter in Ireland (on RTE’s Beatbox) even read it out on air. It absolutely intrigued people and the girl on the cover being taken away by the two cops. That suited me because ‘Boyfriend is such a personal song, particularly the end piece, I couldn’t tell you.”” KS